Humanitarian charities slam governments over Africa catastrophe

Thousands of lives and millions of pounds were lost needlessly because of a “dangerous delay” in the response to the East Africa famine, a report by two leading charities has found.
By The Newsroom
Published 18th Jan 2012, 06:00 BST

A “culture of risk aversion” meant the international community failed to take decisive action after early warnings, causing a six-month set-back in the relief effort.

According to Oxfam and Save the Children, who compiled the review, many donors wanted proof of a humanitarian catastrophe before acting to prevent one.

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A likely emergency was forecast by sophisticated early warning systems as early as August 2010 but the full-scale response did not begin until July last year, when malnutrition rates in parts of the region had gone “far beyond the emergency threshold”, they found.

Their report, A Dangerous Delay, showed this only came when media coverage increased significantly. The charities are now calling on governments to overhaul their responses to food crises.

Their analysis shows that under the current system, large scale emergency work is funded only when hunger levels reach tipping-point – when lives have already been lost and the cost of the response is much greater.

Save the Children’s chief executive Justin Forsyth said the suffering of thousands of youngsters could have been avoided with “more money when it really mattered”. He added: “We can no longer allow this grotesque situation to continue; where the world knows an emergency is coming but ignores it until confronted with TV pictures of desperately malnourished children.”

Between 50,000 and 100,000 people died between April and August, with more than half being younger than five.